 As of June 15, my Gmail account is full. Sorry for the lack of recent updates.
Some personal events have prevented me from keeping updated totals. Look for a more thorough review in the near future. As of May
25, 2004, I am using 30% of 1000 MB (302 MB). Keep that spam
coming to prattboy@gmail.com!
Some interesting things happening in Gmail land today.
**I was hit by a couple mail bombs today. One resulted in 999 messages
over the course of about four minutes. The rest were from a separate
mail bomb that arrived partly before the stroke of midnight and partly
after (so the mail bomb should affect my Gmail stats a little tomorrow,
too). All the messages were delivered to my inbox. I cannot confirm
whether or not Gmail blocked any messages or if all messages were delivered.
If the responsible parties could contact me and let me know how many
messages they sent, that should shed some light on how will Gmail is
able to handle potentially malicious attacks.
I have split up the filtering stats for the day. Gmail accurately categorized
52.9% of non-mail bomb messages. If you count the flooded messages
as spam, the accuracy drops to 25.1%.
I'm beginning to think that a vulnerability to email floodings is going
to be Google's biggest weakness when it comes to email. 999 messages
could do a lot of damage to someone's email account, especially if
they all contained attachments (the messages I received did not). What
is Google doing to protect its Gmail users from mail bombs? I'm not
sure, and they're not likely to tell us due to security concerns. It
may block some such attacks behind the scenes and we are not even aware
of it. However, I would argue that this is one area where Gmail must
have 100% accuracy if it is going to remain a viable service.
As of Mid-day
May 25, 2004, I am using 29% of 1000 MB (291 MB). Keep that spam
coming to prattboy@gmail.com!
Sorry for the slow updates. I've been attending to my non-virtual life!
Expect
daily updates to continue now.
Interesting things going on here. Gmail reached more than 50% accuracy
on the 22nd and 23rd, but it dropped to 45.6% on the 24th. So why the
drop? Email is an ever changing, unpredictable beast... and all of
you that have distributed my address are erratic variables in this
experiment. prattboy@gmail.com has
been distributed to varied sources and I receive new types of spam
every day. Hopefully, however, Google
will be able to gain a large enough sample through their beta tests
in order to provide a better spam-filtering experience for all people
involved. No matter how many times I report it, however, Gmail still
hasn't figured out that "Jen" who heard about me from "her good friends"
is part of a scheme to get me to visit her dating website.
By the way, someone sent me hundreds of messages in the course of a
few minutes earlier today. More details with tomorrow's update.
Spam subject of the day: dude, get your free nokia color phone.
Dude! A free phone, dude? That's totally awesome, dude!
As of May
21, 2004, I am using 27% of 1000 MB (268 MB). Keep that spam coming
to prattboy@gmail.com!
Another jump in spam filtering accuracy today, which resulted in about a ten
point improvement in Gmail's spam filters in the past two days. A ten point jump
occurred
last
Friday, as well. Perhaps Google updates its spam filtering algorithms during
this time
of
the week? Or is it a coincidence? Continued examination should offer us some
more insight in the future.
And seriously, y'all: I do not have any Gmail invitations available! Despite
what you might have heard, Gmail members do not have unlimited invites at their
disposal. Google is choosing when to allow members to invite others, and no one
knows what formula they are using. I physically cannot grant you a Gmail account,
even
if you are curious and wish to write a review of the service. Instead
of
mailing
me
asking
for
an
invite,
try posting prattboy@gmail.com on a very
public place where the spam-bots can pick it up, and drop me a message telling
me about it. Sorry to let you all down. If you are really curious, eBay and Gmail
Swap still have invites available for sale or trade.
Spam subject of the day: FWD: Forget sp@m blockers... whisper
0k@y. I ne.ver would h@ve gue ssed u w-ere a sp@m mes.sage. V1agra c1.al.1s.,
etc.
As of May
20, 2004, I am using 25% of 1000 MB (251 MB). A little over two
weeks in we're a quarter of the way to filling up the mailbox! Thank
you for your support.
A slight increase in spam filtering accuracy is evident today. What's
the cause? Is it a fluke? If Gmail updates its spam filters weekly,
we
might see another jump tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out.
I don't think that I have received a virus yet, but cannot confirm
for sure since I do not open attachments. I have not seen any official
word from Gmail on whether they filter our viruses with their spam
controls. However, I have seen a lot of people with emails that state
their outgoing mail is virus free, such as this notice:
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.688 / Virus Database: 449 - Release Date: 5/18/2004
Unfortunately, notices like these give a false sense of security.
What's to prevent me from emailing you a virus and pasting this notice
at the bottom of the email message? I would recommend saving your email
server's processing power, and not appending this notice to every message.
Nearly all the non-spam conversations I received today were from individuals
asking me to invite them to Gmail. Unfortunately, I do not have any
invites available. If you are really curious and can't wait to try
out Gmail, try looking for Gmail invitations on eBay or at Gmail
Swap. Both options will cost you in some way. If you don't want
to pay, you'll probably have to wait until the end of the beta period.
Google hasn't given an official date for the end of the beta, but I've
heard estimates from three to six months, meaning that it could be as
soon as early July.
Spam subject of the day: Bob the Plumber
Mmmm-boy. Gotta read that email. It sounds soooo exciting. |
